He moved into the living room and out onto their little balcony.
Olivia joined him, slipping her arm companionably through his.
The day was overcast, perfectly matching his mood.
On the other side of the wall, the cemetery’s denizens slumbered peacefully beneath their green counterpane.
Markham felt oddly detached, as though suspended in a bubble . . . everything far away . . .
He experienced an overpowering urge to climb over the railings, empty himself of everything to do with the case and just stretch out under one of the yew trees . . . surrounded by the dead.
A squeeze of the arm recalled him to the present and he knew he had to leave his green refuge.
There was a red zone out there somewhere pulsing with danger, rage and pain. And, at the heart, of it a killer.
He returned Olivia’s embrace and headed back into the flat.
* * *
‘Jesus, that went well,’ Noakes said sarcastically a short time later as they faced each other across Markham’s desk in CID.
Slimy Sid’s vein-popping apoplexy had transcended any of his previous demonstrations, and he was strongly disinclined to entertain any exculpation of Chris Burt.
‘The man’s turned up twice in highly suspicious circumstances,’ he snapped. ‘Plus I understand he’s mentally unbalanced and a potential threat to young women.’
Clearly someone had been talking.
Time for the usual rearguard action.
‘I’ve placed Mr Burt under surveillance, sir.’ Or will do once we get out of here. ‘He won’t stir a foot without our being aware of it.’
‘Can you tell me why you haven’t arrested him, Inspector? One of your hunches?’ Sidney practically spat the last word at them.
Markham’s fists bunched. God, it would be satisfying to deliver a right-hander. He did everything possible with the side of his face furthest away from Sidney . . . everything which might relieve his feelings and prevent him toppling into anarchic fury. Beside him, Noakes sat in stolid sympathy, his features creased and crumpled with the strain of simulating appropriate interest.
‘We just have one or two more leads to check, sir.’
‘Leads. What leads?’
‘One of the teachers from Hope Academy is coming in this morning, sir . . . We think he can shed more light on Ms Shawcross’s personal life.’
‘What’s her personal life got to do with anything? It’s clear she was attacked by a deranged individual who then went on to target further medical personnel . . . for his own warped reasons.’
Time to ramp up the obsequiousness.
‘More than likely it happened just as you say, sir.’ He felt he might explode with the effort of arranging his features into a suitably deferential expression. ‘We’re hoping Mr Cartwright can confirm if Ms Shawcross had been bothered — subjected to unwanted approaches — which might well lead to Mr Burt.’
This was pushing it, but unless Sidney believed they would deliver up the caretaker in due course, all neatly filleted for the CPS, there was no chance of winning the extra time they so badly needed.
‘You’ve got forty-eight hours, Inspector . . . Forty-eight hours and not a minute more.’ The angry turkey-cock flush was subsiding, but Sidney’s eyes were deadly. ‘After that, the case goes to Superintendent Bretherton.’
Blethering Bretherton wouldn’t crack it in a month of Sundays!
Sidney’s basilisk stare fell on Noakes, taking in the scuffed suede sneakers and crumpled fawn ensemble topped by a faded blue raincoat. Markham had to admit the overall effect was somewhat bilious.
A rap on the door saved them from the inevitable diatribe about standards of dress. As Miss Peabody entered with a sheaf of papers to be signed, Markham felt he could almost kiss the woman . . .
‘A chuffing car crash,’ Noakes repeated, just in case the DI was in any doubt as to the disastrousness of their interview with Sidney.
‘I’m quite aware of that thank you, Sergeant.’ He glanced at his wall clock. Nine thirty. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘Leo Cartwright will be joining us shortly . . . I sent Kate and Doyle to pick him up.’
Noakes heaved himself up.
‘Time for a brew.’ He assumed an expression of crafty solicitude. ‘Can I get you anything from the canteen, guv?’
‘If you’re after a heart attack on a plate, Noakes, then make it quick . . . And for God’s sake don’t let Sidney or Bretherton see you noshing in the corridor.’ He grimaced. ‘We’re on notice now. Either we find some fresh angle or we’re stuffed.’
‘As if Bretherton could do any better!’ the DS scoffed. ‘That big girl’s blouse! D’you remember last year, guv, when he took over the trafficking case from Chris Carstairs an’ ended up giving it back cos he made such a balls-up?’
‘I do indeed, Sergeant. Which makes me all the keener to wrap this one up before he gets anywhere near it.’
‘We’ll just ’ave to put the thumbscrews on Cartwright. An’ if we don’t get no joy there, there’s Norman Bates as backup.’
Markham supposed it was as honest a way of summing up their predicament as any.
‘Remember, not a word about Tariq’s murder. Sidney’s agreed to a media blackout, so Cartwright won’t know anything yet.’
* * *
‘Just rewind for us, Mr Cartwright.’
The DI leaned across the table, his muscles tensing.
All of Kate Burton’s faculties were on high alert. She too had heard it, though Noakes and Doyle, stifling their yawns, were oblivious.
‘What is it, Inspector?’
Leo Cartwright was clearly puzzled.
‘What you said then . . . about your association with the centre.’
‘Oh yeah . . . Well, I’m not a patient . . . registered with Medway, y’see. But they’re a nice bunch. I dated Jayne Pickering for a bit . . . saw Tariq Azhar round the sports centre . . . did the odd stint in the study centre with Shirl . . .’
‘You dated Jayne Pickering?’
Now Noakes and Doyle were paying attention.
‘That’s right.’ He seemed to register the electric atmosphere in Markham’s office, looking apprehensively round at the four detectives.
‘How long did you go out with Jayne?’
‘Just a few months.’ He looked somewhat shamefaced. ‘She was a bit . . . well, a bit highly strung for me . . . a bit intense. And the aunt wasn’t keen on it . . . quite strait-laced.’ He gave an unconvincing man-of-the-world chuckle. ‘Worried about me leading her astray.’
Ho ho.
‘Go on, Mr Cartwright.’
‘Well, there’s nothing to tell really. We went out for a bit and then I got involved with Rebecca.’
‘How did Jayne feel about that?’
Again, that look of puzzlement. ‘She was fine. Look, it was no big deal, Inspector . . . We weren’t exactly the love affair of the century or anything like that.’
‘Did she know about Rebecca?’
‘I think so, yeah. But hey, she was totally cool . . . didn’t get heavy about it or anything like that.’
‘Okay, Mr Cartwright.’ Markham looked down at the sheet of paper on his desk. ‘Talk us through this, please.’
‘You wanted to know about Bex’s book — The Amber Tells.’ His tongue flicked out to wet his lips. ‘I haven’t found the manuscript yet . . . but in the meantime this turned up.’
‘What is it?’ Noakes asked baldly. Arty-farty types like Cartwright always took forever to get to the point.
‘The synopsis for the book.’
‘What’s one of them then?’
Chuffing hell, at this rate they’d still be chewing the cud with Cartwright in forty-eight hours.
‘It’s kind of like the idea for a novel . . . a summary.’
‘And something stood out, is that right, Mr Cartwright?’ Markham was ice-cool. No sign that he’d picked up the scent of their quarry.
‘Sort of.’
Noakes wanted
to pin the teacher against the wall and shake it out of him.
‘Go on.’ The DI quelled his subordinate with a look.
‘I feel a bit daft now . . . It was just a metaphor . . .’
A metaphor! Noakes looked like he was going to burst a blood vessel. Before he could say anything, Markham swiftly interposed, ‘An image or a figure of speech, Mr Cartwright, is that what you mean? It rang a bell?’
‘Not with me exactly.’
The room was still. Expectant.
‘It was Azhar.’
‘Tariq Azhar?’
‘Yeah . . . I had the synopsis in my bag when I went down to the sports centre yesterday. He was down there too . . . unwinding after the wake. Just thought I’d show it to him . . . What with him being a therapist, I thought he might find it interesting.’
Now Kate Burton leaned forward. ‘And did he? Find it interesting?’
‘Yeah, as a matter of fact he did . . . Seemed to spook him a bit, though.’ Cartwright looked momentarily uncomfortable. ‘Maybe he was feeling emotional after Bex’s funeral and I shouldn’t have shown him . . .’
‘Did he say what spooked him?’ This was Doyle.
‘It was the image of PTSD being like a Jaffa orange or a big, red tumour inside someone.’
‘Why did that upset him?’
‘Well, not so much upset him . . . he just recognized it . . . Looked a bit taken aback. Apparently Jenni used exactly the same word-picture in a research paper. It was one of her favourites . . .’
‘Jenni Harte? The other therapist?’
‘That’s right, Inspector. Of course, I could’ve got it wrong.’ Cartwright sounded uncertain now. ‘Maybe Tariq was upset cos he thought it was plagiarism . . . That’s when writers borrow stuff from other writers . . . sort of stealing their ideas,’ he translated.
‘Oh aye.’ Noakes’s tone suggested that, where academics were concerned, anything was possible.
‘Or he could have wondered if Jenni was treating Bex on the QT without telling him . . . Anyway, he went dead quiet and said he had to dash.’ Cartwright looked troubled. ‘I was going to suggest a game of squash, but he just took off.’
They had got all they were going to get from the man. But it was enough.
‘Thank you very much, Mr Cartwright.’ The DI rose, extending a hand. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to hang on to that synopsis.’
‘No worries, Inspector.’ The young teacher had a sense of foreboding. ‘Look, has something else happened?’
‘You’ve been a great help, Mr Cartwright, I want you to remember that. Now DS Burton is going to arrange a car for you. I know the events of the last week have been draining.’
And somehow, before he quite knew it had happened, Cartwright was propelled from the office.
* * *
They sat in dead silence until Burton returned.
Markham met each of their eyes in turn.
‘Jayne Pickering and Jenni Harte,’ he said, almost caressingly.
‘Yeah, guv, but how?’
‘I have a theory about that.’
And drawing closer to his team, the DI proceeded to tell them what it was.
14. The Figure in the Carpet
When Markham had finished, the others just looked at him, dumbfounded.
Noakes was the first to find his voice.
‘Lemme get this straight.’ The DS tugged off his paisley tie (bizarrely patterned with strawberries) as though it was strangling him. ‘You’re saying Jayne Pickering killed Rebecca Shawcross cos she was jealous of her for copping off wi’ Leo Cartwright?’
‘Correct, Sergeant.’
‘And you reckon it was Jenni Harte who egged Pickering on . . . sicko mind games or summat . . . The two of ’em in it together.’
‘Right again, Sergeant.’
For once in his life, Noakes didn’t look overjoyed by the DI’s endorsement.
Kate Burton, by contrast, took up the baton with unconcealed eagerness. ‘So, boss . . . You think Rebecca Shawcross was having an affair with her therapist Jenni Harte.’ The conker-brown pageboy swung with the force of her enthusiasm. ‘But Rebecca didn’t take the affair seriously . . . was just stringing Jenni along for ideas she could use in her novel The Amber Tells. Even the title came from her therapy sessions with Jenni . . .’
‘Yes, Kate.’ Markham’s tone was sombre. ‘Rebecca Shawcross used people. Shirley Bolton was right about that. I doubt we’ll ever discover what it was in Rebecca’s past that made her a manipulator . . . but it was the only way she knew how to survive . . .’
‘She was bisexual, then . . .’ Noakes was clearly unhappy. As far as he was concerned, sexual flexibility had no place in the scheme of things.
For a moment, Markham experienced an overwhelming compassion for his truculent, red-faced number two. The world was spinning on its axis while George Noakes clung to the civilized certainties of an earlier era.
‘I would say she was at a crossroads, Sergeant. Experimenting . . . open to the full range of experience.’ Markham met his wingman’s eyes, willing him to understand. ‘But whereas Jenni took the liaison seriously, to Rebecca it was just another manoeuvre.’ The DI could see now that he was bringing Noakes with him. ‘Rebecca badly wanted to be a successful novelist . . . She was pumping Jenni for ideas . . . using those therapy sessions for material . . .’
‘You’re saying Shawcross never really had PTSD then, sir?’
‘Oh no, Doyle, I think it’s very likely she did . . . And she found a sensitive and empathetic therapist in Jenni Harte.’
‘But her motives were complicated.’
‘Precisely, Kate.’ As ever, Burton was on the DI’s wavelength. ‘Rebecca saw Jenni unofficially — as a private patient — so there was no record in the practice books of their sessions.’
‘But Jenni scribbled stuff in her appointments diary . . . a careless oversight . . . and Peter Elford came across it when he was nosing round the offices.’
‘Spot on, Doyle.’
Now they were motoring.
‘Elford immediately made the connection between the two women—’
‘And must’ve confronted Jenni Harte with what he knew.’
‘Correct, Doyle.’
‘Hold on. Hold on.’ This was all going too fast for the resident behemoth. ‘Pickering had an alibi for Shawcross, guv. She was in a training meeting or whatnot wi’ Maureen Stanley.’
‘But don’t you see, sarge.’ Burton got in before Markham could respond. ‘That’s what was bothering Loraine Thornley . . . She saw Maureen drifting round the surgery when she was supposed to be teaching Jayne and knew that she hadn’t been upfront with us.’
‘Right. I’m with you now.’ Noakes scratched his chin ruminatively. ‘So Loraine was upset about that, what with her being a stickler for doing things right.’
‘Yes, sarge. But don’t you see,’ Burton repeated, eyes alight. ‘Jayne was left on her own . . . There was a window of opportunity . . . and she took it.’
‘Chuffing big risk.’
‘Presumably she nipped out herself when Maureen did her disappearing act and ran into Rebecca who was hanging round the surgery . . . maybe angling for a word with Jenni . . . then somehow lured her into the minor ops treatment room.’
‘I should have seen it sooner.’ Markham’s face twisted. ‘I zeroed in on Maureen Stanley while ignoring Jayne’s lack of an alibi for the time when Maureen was absent.’
‘None of us made the connection, sir,’ Burton said earnestly. ‘When Loraine Thornley was murdered, we just thought of Jayne as Loraine’s niece . . . Never looked at her in the light of a suspect.’
‘You’re saying Jayne killed her aunt, then.’ Doyle looked distressed. ‘But why?’ Angrily, he plucked at a hangnail. ‘If Loraine figured Maureen Stanley for the killer, she hadn’t got the right person . . . so why’d she have to die?’
‘But Loraine didn’t,’ Burton went on. ‘Didn’t figure Stanley for the killer . . . Oh sure, sh
e didn’t like it that Maureen lied, but deep down she knew it wasn’t Maureen.’
‘Why’d she have to die?’ Doyle persisted.
‘Because she was starting to become suspicious about Jayne . . . maybe she’d seen something which alerted her that there was something going on between her niece and Jenni Harte . . . something that made her uneasy . . .’
‘What . . . you mean summat sexual . . . ?’
Noakes’s eyes were popping. He had just about got his head round the idea of a liaison between Rebecca Shawcross and Jenni Harte, and now it looked like turning into some sort of gruesome ménage à trois.
‘Not necessarily, sarge,’ Burton said soothingly, alarmed by her colleague’s sudden fuchsia hue. ‘More like she was worried that Jenni had an unwholesome hold over Jayne. She must’ve noticed something, sensed something. She may have said something to Jayne . . . something which convinced Jayne her aunt was on to them . . .’
‘So who killed Peter Elford then?’ Noakes demanded belligerently. ‘Pickering was out doing home visits with Loraine in the morning, wasn’t she?’
‘I wonder,’ Burton said softly. ‘D’you know, sarge, I think we’ll find Jayne turned up late that morning . . . made up some sort of excuse . . . the traffic, not feeling well, whatever . . . and it was only afterwards that Loraine began to ask questions . . .’
‘So you’re saying Pickering killed Shawcross, Elford and Loraine, then?’ Noakes’s face was working with the intensity of his cogitations.
‘Yeah, I reckon so, sarge.’ Burton’s voice was gentle as though, like Markham, she had sensed the tectonic plates shifting below Noakes’s feet.
‘What about Tariq Azhar?’ Doyle looked almost as troubled as Noakes. ‘Who did for him?’
‘Maybe Jayne . . . maybe Jenni.’ Markham met each of their eyes in turn. ‘Or maybe joint enterprise by that point.’
‘Jeez, guv.’ Doyle’s frank boyish face was more conflicted than Markham had ever seen it. ‘Jenni Harte . . .’ He held up two crossed fingers. ‘I mean, she and Tariq were like that — ever so close. If you saw them together . . . you couldn’t get a cigarette paper between them.’
Detective Markham Mysteries Box Set Page 145